Backwards fun truck

[Shran]

Background on this: if you take a 80-97 Ford steering box and swap the guts from a 73-79 truck (I think) into it, it'll steer backwards (so when you turn the steering wheel left, the wheels turn right.) My buddy down the street thought it would be fun to do that for our offroad club events so he built a steering box and we put it in my old '88 Ranger and used it for our Halloween event last year. It was a lot of fun to drive around an obstacle course and having a manual transmission made it even more of a challenge. I needed that truck for other purposes and now have given it to my kid so I had to put it back to normal. I SHOULD have kept the 95 Ranger he rolled as it would have made a perfect donor... make it steer backwards and leave it that way/park it in the woods at our other property until needed but that only occurred to me after I parted it out.

Enter this rolling disaster:

I bought it off FB marketplace last week for $300. It runs really good but it's really rusty and has been mercilessly abused and now either needs a clutch or it has a bunch of neutral gears. Not sure which yet but either is not a hard fix. So the plan here is to make it move under its own power as cheap as possible, and then permanently convert it to steer backwards and leave it like that for people to mess around with at club events. I think it will be a blast.

Cost breakdown so far:
- It still has catalytic converters so I'm going to hack those off, should be worth about $150. Straight pipe will be fine...this will never be on the road again.
- Came with a really nice tool box. Probably worth $100 there.
- It has a manual 1354 transfer case and the linkage & boot is intact!!!!! I may keep this or I may sell it, not sure yet, but that would pay for a clutch/flywheel and any transmission parts I need... decisions decisions
- I will for sure need to do wheel bearings and maybe ball joints on the drivers side front. Sum ting wong there. Probably free, but, hard to say.

Here's a vidja from last year's event - some people got in and conquered it right away, others were really on the struggle bus:

 

[Uncle Gump]

This is what happens when rednecks have spare parts and get together with beer...

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I saw a video where someone did this with a bicycle. Apparently after several days the mind compensates and it becomes natural. Until you get on a normal bike, and have to relearn again...

backwards steering bicycle at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[Shran]

This is what happens when rednecks have spare parts and get together with beer...

It's called drinking & thinking.

It's a lot of fun to drive and everyone loves it. I need to round up a bunch more traffic cones and make an obstacle course that is a bit harder than the one in the video, with the goal of whoever knocks over the fewest cones wins. This truck is just so perfect for this because it's only one step above being scrap iron. More to come.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

It would be a fun grand theft auto sting car too.

Leave it somewhere with the keys in it, sit back and watch...

Kind of a odd history side note, anybody watching Titanic ever notice they say "hard to starboard" turn the ship to left and hit the iceburg on the starboard (right side) of the ship?

That bugged me for years. Why would they say hard to starboard when the iceburg is on the starboard side of the ship? Meanwhile the crew is clearly spinning the helm left...

Turns out at that time British ships were still using "tiller commands", like a tiller on a sailboat. To turn right you push the tiller left etc.

 

[RobbieD]

it'll steer backwards (so when you turn the steering wheel left, the wheels turn right.)

Take it to the next level, man.

Swap the gas and brake pedals, too.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Take it to the next level, man.

Swap the gas and brake pedals, too.

I kinda thought you might be a bit red'r then most.

But I like that idea!!!

 

[Uncle Gump]

Might be easier to swap the clutch and brake pedal...

 

[RobbieD]

Might be easier to swap the clutch and brake pedal...

No glory in "easier".

And figuring out a way to use the horn button to control the clutch would be a hoot in itself!

 

[JoshT]

This is what happens when rednecks have spare parts and get together with beer...

That's nothing, wait until you see the redneck hurl-a-whirl. Spare rear axle, inverted so the pinion points up, then attach a hitch and bolt a seat on the pinion.

And figuring out a way to use the horn button to control the clutch would be a hoot in itself!

That wouldn't be difficult. Probably expensive, but not difficult. Depending on where the horn button is located, the difficulty would be pressing the horn button, steering, and shifting at the same time.

 

[ShhhhhDougsHere]

I'm enjoying this read.

How about making the door latch handle open the door one way and if pushed the other way it operates the gas.

 

[Shran]

I had some time to mess with this late last week and took the shifter out to rule out something really easy on the bad clutch/many neutrals situation. The shifter had the typical "really loose, you can move it anywhere" feel to it and I found that the shifter bushings were missing and the trans was in 1st gear but the shifter stub had come out of its gate and was not in any of them. I put it back in neutral and added new shifter bushings. I can feel it hit every gear now but it won't move at all, even in 4 low, so either the clutch is for sure totally wasted or the previous owner managed to get it in two gears at once and broke something. Guess I will find out - some gears seem really "sticky", 3rd and reverse in particular, but I am hopeful that it just needs a clutch.

Also cleaned a whole bunch of trash out of it, and swapped on some better tires. If anyone needs burnout tires, there are 15 of them sitting in front of my house right now... FREEEEEEE

 

[Blmpkn]

I've always wanted to put a drawstring switch for a lamp as the ignition switch in something.

It could at least be used for on/off.. starter could be on any random ol button.

 

[Shran]

New flywheel & clutch ordered today - thank the lord for RockAuto, only cost me $110 shipped for both of those items. Hoping to have this up and running and off my car trailer ASAP.

Odd piece of trivia but the 3.0 apparently shares a clutch disc and pressure plate with 2.3 powered trucks. I was hoping that a 2.9 clutch would work as I am pretty sure I have a couple of good used ones and maybe even a new one in the parts hoard. I may have to do some comparing once I have parts in hand.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I think they are the same, the likely difference on a 2.9L version is the friction disc as the transmissions it came with might not be the same spline as they didn't normally come with an M5OD.